The Centre has changed its stand on the issue of Nirma Ltd’s proposed cement plant on the Saurashtra coastline and urged the Supreme Court (SC) to grant sometime so that a committee could visit the place, meet people and come up with new findings.
In an affidavit, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest has stated that if the conditions applied in sanctioning the proposal were followed in true spirit, there would be no environment hazard. The Centre had given environment clearance for the project on December 11, 2008 when A Raja was the Environment Minister.
After the company conceded that there is a water body existing at the plant site on the seashore near Mahuva, the SC had sought a report from the Ministry on whether the plant affects the reservoir. However, the Centre’s affidavit did not answer two questions raised by the judges’ queries whether construction of the plant would adversely affect the water body and after commissioning the plant, the reservoir would remain protected.
The attorney general of India, Ghoolam Vahanvaty submitted that the committee would visit the cement plant and the reservoir sites, meet people and hear all concerned parties and submit a report. The Ministry will file a substantive affidavit on basis of the new report.
An appeal has been filed in the SC by a group of local farmers – Shree Mahuva Bandhara Khetiwadi Pariyavaran Bachav Samittee against Gujarat High Court’s (HC) decision of rejecting their PIL. The farmers have been protesting in and out of the court against the state government’s decision to allot 268-hectare land to the company near a check dam. As per recommendations by the government committee and upon the HC’s directions, the company has till date returned 100-hectare land back to the state government, said farmer’s advocate Anand Yagnik.